


Like a flame burning brightly

by nynyve



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gangster Bellamy, Historical AU, Mentions of Death, Nurse Clarke, World War I, i love this two a whole lot, sort of season 2 vibes here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 17:27:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17187257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nynyve/pseuds/nynyve
Summary: ‘I’ve been asking around, Clarke. You came on the train from Polis. You were at the front. Your behaviour indicates a wealthy upbringing but, here you are, working for Nyko’ he pauses a second, for the sake of dramatism. ‘I wonder if you have some dirty little secret that you don’t want anyone to know.’Her silence seems to be enough answer.orNurse Griffin arrives at Arkadia running from her past. Delinquent Bellamy Blake thinks she's just a pretty face.He's wrong.





	Like a flame burning brightly

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this draft waiting forever to be published, but I was so worried about it being horrible I couldn't do it. But hey, the year is about to end, so. Here you have it. Let it go.
> 
> I apologize in advance for any grammar mistakes you find, I'm not a native english speaker and it will probably show. If any of you is kind enough to consider it, I'm in desperate need of a beta :)

 

 

Clarke looks outside the window, Polis not fully awake yet, a faded light now only starting to appear in the sky. Abby stares at the cigarette still smoking in her fingers.

‘No sleep last night?’

She shakes her head. The weather outside matches her mood perfectly, with angry winds racking the windows and a persistent threat of dark clouds. Days like these bring back bad memories, and bad memories bring nightmares.

‘I busied myself packing. I guess I’m a bit nervous after all.’

Her mother hugs her, and rests her forehead on the top of the golden curls of her head.

‘It will be just a few months. You can do this. I know you can. Half a year and you’ll be able to come back.’

Clarke closes her eyes for a second. Yes. Just a few months. She’s been at front, she’s seen people die, she has killed with her bare hands. This is nothing.

Still, her hands are shaking a bit, later that morning the moment she is finally on board. The train rattles against the tracks. The sound reminds her of the machine guns.

Finally, sleep comes to her.

  
  
-

 

The air in this middle of nowhere industrial city stinks. Arkadia has a permanent blue light halo caused by the factories' pollution. People have a strange skin color, as if they were a little too much tan, and there are no smiles in her new neighbors when she introduces herself.

Everything is terrifyingly similar to a town in the war front, and Clarke finds it oddly comforting.

The clinic asking for nurses is on the other side of the street with the taverns and the gambling houses. Clarke wrinkles her nose. This could mean trouble.

‘Doctor Nyko?’ a man with long hair is wiping his hands into a white-ish cloth. He looks directly at her eyes, stern.

‘Who’s asking?’

‘I’m nurse Clarke Griffin, sir. I sent a telegram four days ago. I’m interested in the job if you are still offering it.’

‘Ah yes. The nurse from war’ he seems to take her in, still stone-faced. ‘Well, I suppose you’ll fit here, miss. This town is sort of a battlefront. I need a female nurse to help with pregnancies and births, maybe little children too. Do you have experience with this kind of issues?’

Clarke nods and shuts her mouth. She has way more experience with death and suffering, but he doesn’t need to know it.

‘Now, there’s a couple of things you should know. I assume you already had to deal with liars and gamblers and fucking twats in your life, miss, but let me tell you there isn’t a single honest person living in this town, and we are not a charity: we do services in exchange of money. I’ll pay you weekly, and I’m going to test you, if I don’t like what I see you’ll be out of my clinic in a fucking second, is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you better not get involved into anything here: no social work, no taverns, no bets at the races… Don’t make any friends. They don’t want to be your friends. They want your money.’

Nyko has a facial tattoo and is a big man, and if Clarke were an ordinary rich city woman she’d be scared at the harshness of his voice. But she’s seen worse. He has no idea about the kind of person she is.

‘All right, sir.’

  
-

 

There is a handsome man outside Octavia Blake house, smoking. Clarke sees him on the other side of the street, head down, eyes hidden under the cap, resting his lower back against the wall.

He looks dangerous. She knows who he is.

His family and the rest of his band -people call them the Delinquents- control a part of this town. You say a wrong word and end with a lot of bones out of place, Nyko warned her. But he added they can’t refuse to assist them if they pay, so Clarke doesn’t ask questions when a boy called Miller knocks on the clinic’s door and asks for a home visit.

The moment she stops at the door of the two-floor house the head goes up and a pair of brilliant dark eyes examines her with a piercing gaze.  

He’s warning her.

  
-

 

Octavia is a war widow furious with the world. She has a quiet violence sleeping under the surface waiting for any small excuse to show and makes crystal clear her dislike for nurses and doctors the second Clarke enters the door of her house. Clarke doesn’t even open her mouth during her medical examination.

The other woman looks at her squinting her eyes because of the cigarette smoke, half a smile in her lips as if constantly mocking her.

‘You don’t seem the kind of girl who lives in this town’ Octavia answers to her question about the regularity of her periods. Clarke ponders about the right answer to that sentence.

‘I didn’t. I came here for the job.’

‘Why?’

‘I needed it.’

‘A rich little girl like you needed a job and found it at this shitty hole?’ Clarke’s been trying to blend in with the town people but she knows there are no way people like the Blakes believe she is low class.

‘A job is a job. Everything seems to be normal Mrs Blake, but you should keep an eye on that cut in your side to see if it heals okey.’

Octavia laughs, hollow, and a puff of smoke obscures her features.

‘Right. Be careful, rich girl’ she warns, catching Clarke’s wrist and squeezing it too tight when she’s taking her coat to leave. ‘We might be liars, but we don’t like others.’

 

-

 

Life in a small town is easy, especially if you avoid being friends with the rest of the population. Clarke is always polite with her neighbours and the clinic clients, but is careful enough to never share any kind of personal information or be too open with anybody. Some Sundays she walks on the morning up the hill to the graveyard, and wanders among musky tombstones, where the silence seems to fit her broody mood better than the town sounds.  She returns home and writes letters to her mum she never sends afterwards.

 

-

 

Clarke happens to be at the clinic back from Emori’s house when they bring in the young man.

‘Open the fucking door!’ an angry voice screams while banging loudly. Nyko throws a look at her and nods curtly.

Three men barrel inside, the one in the middle being carried by the other two, and another one follows closely.

The last one has dark piercing eyes and looks even more handsome now that he’s standing near.

‘Atom had an accident at the factory’ the man with the angry voice and face says. The other one carrying the body she recognizes as Miller. ‘He was working with the chlorine and suddenly something exploded, there was a heavy smoke after, we had to wait until it faded to help him.’

Nyko approaches the now lying man and gestures towards Clarke. They examine the panting man silently and look at each other.

‘Do something!’ the other man yells, threatening. Blake shushes him with a calmed ‘Murphy.’

Nyko sighs.

‘He has inhaled too much, his lungs are burned. We can’t help him.’

The finality of the statement causes the three men to look at them for a minute with the only sound of the heavy breathings of his friend in the room. There is a mixture of loss, anger, guilt and sadness in their faces. Clarke has seen those expressions before.

‘Then’ Blake says ‘let’s take him to home. Let him die with his family.’

‘He will not die peacefully’ Clarke states, and Nyko turns to look at her, surprised. ‘His breathing will become labored, each intake more painful than the prior one. He will scream in agony, maybe for hours, and there is no known medication for this.’

‘Then what do you suggest, princess?’ Blake spits, and Clarke feels a hot anger boil in her chest at the mocking name. If there’s something she is not, is a princess.

‘End his suffering.’

There is something funny at the way Nyko is looking at her, almost as if he was seeing her for the first time even though they have been working together for weeks.

Nobody moves a muscle for a second, and she closes her eyes infinitesimally. Then her past self takes control of her mind and, with calm movements, she takes a scalpel on her right hand and caresses the young man face with the other.

‘Hey’ she whispers softly ‘I’m here to help, I’m going to help you, I promise.’ A choked sound comes from the teary-eyed man. ‘I’m going to sing you a lullaby my father used to sang me when I was little’ she says, and then her soft murmuring hides the sound of blood dripping on the hard floor when the sharp knife cuts skin, muscle and vein.

Everything happens just as it has happened before. A man dying, her mercyful hands and a whispered song.

Silence seems to wrap around everyone in the room. After a while, when the lifeless hand no longer squeezes her own, Clarke stands up and closes the man’s eyes.

‘May we meet again. What was his name?’ she asks, her voice hollow, not looking at anyone’s eyes.

‘Atom’ Blake answers.

‘Atom’ she repeats.

She leaves the room and washes her hands in a small basin. Atom. She needs to remember the name.

 

  
-

 

  
Nyko pours a whisky and pushes the glass towards her.

‘You are no longer on probation, miss Griffin. Now drink. You need it.’

It’s been a long time since she last drowned her pain in liquor. She drinks.

Later that night, the moment she’s alone in her room she opens a little black notebook hidden inside a bible she brought from home, and writes at the end of the page filled with names:

 _Atom. September the 3rd, 1919_.

At the top a word remains, inked black, furiously repeated in every page.

 _Wanheda_.

  
  
-

 

He’s smoking at the graveyard fence, his back carefully resting on the mud-free stones. He’s a piece of art, Clarke can’t help but to notice, with his three pieces suit fitting his strong arms and shoulders and his black hair obscuring the brows a bit.

The smoke gets in his eyes the moment he exhales and her brain is able to taste the bitter flavour in her memories.

‘Mind if I join you, Miss Griffin?’

‘Not at all’ she answers politely. ‘Although I’m afraid this walk is not very interesting, Mr Blake.’

‘A bit monotonous, yes’ he says with half a smile. ‘But peaceful.’

Looking at him out of the corner of her eye Clarke notices a small scar above his upper lip and a proper shave. He catches her eye spying on him and for a second there is a dangerous light dancing on his eyes. He materializes a  delicate golden bottle from the inside of his wool coat and puts it in her hands.

‘Perfume?’

‘I thought you were acquainted with whiskey.’

‘Ah. But why?’

‘Atom.’

‘That was three weeks ago’ Clarke had been surprised there were no consequences for her. She had expected the Delinquents to react to the death in some way, but nothing happened. In fact, she had encountered Murphy at the street five days ago and he even greeted her.

‘Well, I’m sorry princess, I had things to do’ Blake scoffs, but there is no malice in his tone.

‘There is no need of this, though. I did it for him, not you.’

‘I know. Can you just accept a gift, uh?’

In spite of herself, Clarke smiles. She’s always been stubborn, but Blake seems to even appreciate it, which isn’t something very common. ‘Thank you, Mr. Blake.’

‘That’s better’ he praises her. A whistle echoes in the landscape before she has the chance to reply, causing the man to stop abruptly and listen. Another whistle, low and long, follows a few seconds later. He touches his cap and turns around. ‘Have a good day, Miss Griffin.’

For a minute, Clarke stands in the middle of the road with a perfume bottle filled with liquor in her cold hands, wondering what just happened.

 

-

 

Newspapers talk about gunfire and a girl called Monroe dead on a bank robbery. Later that night Clarke observes from the café’s windows how several Delinquents cross the street towards the bar. They all wear a black cloth tied in their right arms.

They are mourning the girl, she realizes.

 

-

 

She’s buying apples when the car stops at her side.

‘Come for a ride, princess’ Blake says. It’s an order, but his soft tone makes it sound almost like an invitation. She wonders about what would happen now if she says no. Her hat collides with the car’s roof the moment she sits. With one hand on the wheel he busies himself into lighting a cigarette as the town starts to become country and the road becomes a dirt path.

‘If you needed medical help you could have asked back at the clinic, Mr. Blake.’

‘You can call me Bellamy, you know. It’s how everyone knows me here. And I’ll do the same if you don’t mind.’

Clarke starts getting alarmed.

‘As a matter of fact, I do mind. And where are we going?’

‘I’ve been asking around, Clarke. You came on the train from Polis. You were at the front. Your behaviour indicates a wealthy upbringing but, here you are, working for Nyko’ he pauses a second, for the sake of dramatism. ‘I wonder if you have some dirty little secret that you don’t want anyone to know.’

Her silence seems to be enough answer.

‘But I am a busy man, and I have things going on, so maybe your mysteries can remain hidden if you help me with something.’

Clarke squeezes her clutch. Anger blooms in her chest.

'Do you want to say something?’ Bellamy asks.

Clarke scoffs.

‘Yes.’

'Of course you want to say something’ he laughs. How this entire situation is just a funny game for him infuriates her.

'I’m not a whore.’

'I’m sure about that. You coming, then?’

'Have I got any choice?’

He smiles as the car stops outside a big old house. ‘Not really, princess.’

What he wants her to do is check on the girls of the brothel. They have little money to spare with medical issues, and Nyko adamantly refused to visit them because it would mean getting involved in a gang war he is desperately trying to avoid.

The Delinquents aren’t the owners of the house (‘Not our kind of business’ Bellamy answers when she asks) but the women inside are friends or family with the gang, and they take care of them whenever they can.

Clarke finds herself conflicted about refusing to help: she knows Nyko won’t like it and will fire her if he knows, but she wants to do something. And keep her secrets buried where they are, too.

So she takes off her hat and coat and puts on a pair of gloves.

Bellamy smiles.

  
-

 

Two weeks later, everything changes.

Clarke notices the man’s gaze the instant she crosses the door of the pub. She stares back a little too long for him not to notice, and a feral smile appears in his face. It brings memories.

He stands up and Clarke walks to the door, towards the street, running the moment the door closes behind her.

But he’s fast and with a hard movement pushes her to the dark alley near the clinic.

‘Little bitch’ Emerson’s arms are around her neck and she’s starting to feel dizzy because of the pressure ‘You thought I wouldn’t find you? You thought you would be able to hide from me?’

He lets her go and Clarke gasps for air before spinning around and trying to run.

The man’s hands catch her hair and pull back so hard it hurts.

‘I’ve been looking for you for a long time, you murderer. I will now avenge my sons, don’t think you are going anywhere.’

Emerson makes the mistake of not taking her purse away. There is a small gun hidden there and its cold surface is so smooth it almost falls from her hand while she points it to her own arm.

The trigger gets pulled, and blood splashes on the wall.

  
  
-

 

It’s Octavia who answers the door. Clarke stands there, covered in blood under the faint yellow light of the gas streetlight.

‘I would like to speak with your brother, please.’

The dark haired girl looks at her up and down.

‘What did you got yourself into, nurse?’ she asks nonchalantly.

‘A mess’ Clarke answers truthfully.

Octavia nods.

‘Come in. And wait here.’

She hears hurried whispers upstairs before Bellamy comes down striding.

‘Princess, is that blood yours?’

Clarke looks down to her hands. Some nights she has this strange dream in which everything is red and sticky like that nursing room two years ago and her limbs feel like jelly. Tonight seems as surreal as those dreams.

‘Only part of it.’

‘Jesus Christ’ he swears while Octavia approaches her with a clean cloth.

‘I already did a tourniquet’ Clarke says. Her voice sounds distant and devoid of emotion. ‘I came here to ask for a favour from the Delinquents.’

Bellamy stops dead in his tracks, and his face turns the former worry into suspicion.

‘What kind of favour?’ Octavia asks, harsh.

Clarke breathes slowly.

‘A big one. The kind of favour I know I will have to return one day.’

Bellamy gives her a glass of water.

‘Sit. Please.’

She complies.  

‘I was at the front two weeks prior to the end of the war. The unity we were supporting had been assigned months earlier to the siege of this small town, Mount Weather. Our orders were to get the civilians out and clean the city, so we thought it would be easy and peaceful. They were ferocious in a way we weren’t expecting, using a twisted violence against the soldiers they managed to capture. Horrible mutilations... almost as if they enjoyed hurting people. A small group of citizens tried to avoid the confrontation, they sent us a message pleading for help. Military intelligence said there was no viable solution to get them out.’ She still sees the dirty paper on the table screaming for help, the red letters dripping blood in her nightmares, the telegram with the official seil: NO MORE RISKS. Finn’s feverish eyes asking her to please end it all.

‘The day the bombs arrived only three nurses and seven men remained alive. No one wanted to push the button.’ Clarke’s voice trails, as her repressed memories flash now before her eyes; that grey, windy day replaying again and again as if it never ended. ‘I did. I bombed them. The town was destroyed. No survivors.’

The siblings share a look.

Clarke’s glass of water trembles on her hand.

‘The day the war ended Carl Emerson was pardoned and returned to his hometown. He wasn’t even allowed to bury his family, they had been put into a mass grave. He had been serving as a spy, so he found out about me after a couple of months.’

‘Is that Emerson’s blood?’ Bellamy asks with a surprisingly soft voice. Clarke finds his deep tone soothing in a strange way.

‘I guess I’m lucky he didn’t know I always carry a small gun in my purse.’

Octavia’s eyes, contrary to her brother’s, are hard and cold.

‘It’s a heartbreaking story no doubt, but what do you want miss Griffin?’

‘I-need his body to disappear. I can’t go to the police.’

‘That one is a big favour.’

‘I know. I’ll pay my debt in any way you decide.’

They remain silent for a while, Bellamy and Octavia apparently having a conversation only with their eyes. Clarke knows she should be afraid of them betraying her and calling the police, but finds herself oddly calm about that. Maybe this is how everything ends, after all. Maybe this is how Wanheda pays for her crimes.

In the end, though, Octavia sighs and seemingly gives up.

‘Go home, nurse Griffin. We’ll take care of your mess.’

‘I’ll escort you there’ Bellamy offers.

‘No’ his sister seems about to lose patience. ‘We don’t want any neighbours talking to the cops, Bell, don’t be stupid.’

‘She’s right’ Clarke agrees. ‘I’ll manage.’

The siblings watch as Clarke leaves, her coat lapels obscuring half her face, her heels not touching the ground.

‘You should stop looking at her like that, brother’ she hears Octavia say while she’s crossing the street. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  
  
-

 

Clarke dreams about the day Raven spat at her face. The day she told her how Finn died, how she had killed him to spare him the pain.

She wakes with her cheeks wet.

  
  
-

 

Newspapers tell no story about a dead man found. Emerson’s body is never even mentioned. Clarke tries to go on on her everyday life as always, but everything seems darker now, even more dangerous than before.

  
-

 

She goes to the café and orders champaigne on her birthday. On the street, Octavia makes no attempt to greet her whenever they cross paths but tonight she sits on the other side of the table when half the bottle is already gone. Clarke’s eyes are red from crying.

‘If you had mention you were having a pity party I’d had been delighted to join you.’

‘What do you want?’ the blonde asks brusquely. Octavia’s mouth is a tight line.

‘Careful. I could bring out the knife I have on my boot to open you like a pig on slaughtering season, and nobody in this fucking room would even lift a brow.’ 

Clarke averts her eyes from the woman in front of her.

‘Sorry.’

‘Good. Tomorrow night, there’s going to be a party. A real one. You need to wear a pretty dress and act as a classy charming girl with a man called Roan.’

Clarke gulps down her glass of champaigne.

‘Come to our house at afternoon, you should meet he rest of the gang.’

Clarke nods. She owes them. But her guts twist in her belly.

-

 

‘What’s a good girl like you doing in a hellhole like this?’ Roan’s voice is deep, and Clarke finds herself having a good time with a man who is undoubtedly dangerous but also charming and a bit fun.

‘Good girls go to heaven’ she recites while sipping from her glass, ‘bad girls go everywhere.’

He roars with laughter.

She had entered the room armed with her beautiful blue dress and a white stole, turning heads as every single man in the club checked on her fringe covered ass. She has some good cleavage she is generously sharing with the world today, and walks with a confidence she’s not feeling. Octavia had provided her with elegant french cigarettes and her brother had been no exception on the overall appreciation matter, his eyes a bit dark when he had seen her in that dress, which had pleased Clarke more than she is willing to admit. 

She pours herself another glass and Roan joins her. She has had years and years of training with alcohol and eccentric parties; after all, she grow up as the only daughter of very wealthy parents.

‘We are not asking you to fuck him’ Octavia had said earlier that evening, as straightforward as always. ‘All we need is for him to drink a lot. We want him distracted. There are business we need to discuss and Roan is a tough nut to crack. Enter our princess here, flirt with him a bit, move your hips a little and voilà.’

‘You sure you’ll be able to be fun?’ Bellamy had asked, and the rest of them had laughed.

‘I can be fun’ she had replied, affronted, and he laughed even more. Now he doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself that much, and keeps sending glances to her from the other side of the room that she keeps avoiding.

‘Blondie here drinks like a fish’ her companion praises her, much later when Bellamy and Murphy approach to their table. She raises her glass towards Bellamy.

‘To having fun.’

  
  
-

 

The headache Clarke experiences next day is a reminder of why she stopped going to parties. Still, she is in good spirits the rest of her day and is about to turn off the lights when the door of the clinic opens. Bellamy flashes her a half-smile, clearly drunk and pleased with himself.

‘Do you need medical advice about alcohol intoxication, Mr. Blake?’ she asks, collecting her hat from the coat stand. He snorts, and Clarke is about to smile too, but he moves towards her and her smile dies.

‘Anyone ever told you this light makes your hair shine like the sun?’ his fingers caress it delicately.

‘Bellamy’ she warns. It’s the first time she uses his name but he pays no attention to her harsh tone.

‘It’s been a good day for me. A good day.’ He’s too close and smells of cigarettes and wood, his arms around her as if they were dancing to some music, his mouth inches from hers. Clarke is not afraid, but she’s aware she should be.

Maybe that is what scares her so much.

'Is this how I pay my debt?’ she asks with a low voice, eyes hard.

It’s worse than hitting him physically.

'For fucks sake, Clarke! What kind of person do you think I am?!’

'I really have no idea, do I?’

He kisses her. It's messy and hard and hot and Clarke likes it against her own will.

'I want you. But I want you to want me, too’ Bellamy whispers roughly against her lips. She experiences two equally pulling forces on her chest: harsh hate and hot desire.

Her head wins, as always.

‘If you want me to cooperate, I won’t. I won’t resist either, if that’s what you want.’

‘Why must you be so bloody difficult?!’

She barely flinches when he hits the wall next to her face, hard.

‘Fuck you’ it’s all he says before the door of her room opens and his form vanishes down the stairs.

After a few seconds of silence, Clarke breathes again.

  
  
-

 

The dreams that night are about his hands in her hips and his tongue on her mouth. It starts pleasant but suddenly Bellamy’s face contorts and changes, and he has Wells’ death eyes, then Finn is spitting blood and dad lies still inside a wood coffin.

A thick darkness surrounds her, choking her, until she wakes gasping for air.

 

-

 

‘Who’s Raven Reyes?’

Clarke wasn’t expecting him to ever speak to her again, so it’s a surprise Bellamy is outside her building waiting for her. The shock is even bigger when he opens his vest pocket and a letter envelope materializes in front of her face.

She tries to grab it, but he’s taller and quicker.

‘How did you get that? It’s personal!’

‘Jasper works at the post station, princess. I’ll ask again: who’s Raven Reyes?’

‘It’s none of your damn business.’

‘I do the questioning and you answer, is that clear?’ She knows better than defying him in the middle of the street where everybody can see them, so she steels herself and politely asks Bellamy if he would like to come inside for a tea.

The moment the door closes behind them, however, Clarke explodes.

‘You have no right to gossip into my fucking mail!’

‘We did something very dangerous for you, Clarke, do i need to remind you?’ he whispers through gritted teeth. ‘I want to know if someday we will have to deal with another corpse because you couldn’t take care of your own mess.’

A solid ten seconds pass in which her eyes bore a hole into his skull.

‘She’s the widow of the man I was in love with.’

Bellamy opens his mouth and closes it again, clearly taken off-guard. Clarke unbuttons her shirt and gets a picture from inside her bra.

‘I met Sgt. Finn Collins on my first mission. He was kind and made me laugh and I fell in love with him. He forgot to tell me he was already married, because the city his wife was living in was bombarded and he thought she was dead. But she was very much alive and joined the mechanical division to find him, which she did. Long story short, we met and it was a fucking disaster, and after that Finn died, the end. A mess I already handled’ her voice is full of venom. ‘Now, we can sit and talk about the sad tragedy of my life, if you consider it so crucial for your interests, or you can fuck off.’ She’s breathing hard but her body vibrates with anger, her stare as cold as iron, her fingers gripping his arm. ‘One last thing: if you try to involve her in anything I will show you what I’m capable of. And believe me, better men than you underestimated me, and now they are dead.’

Bellamy stares at her, body rigid, clenching his jaw. Then he turns, puts the letter on the table, and leaves.

 

-

 

Clarke busies herself with newborn babies and middle-aged workers with lungs full of black smoke. People around town start to come to the clinic to ask for her specifically, and Nyko seems pleased. She spends little time outside work but sometimes she stays awake until midnight to peer through her window and see the Delinquents along the street chatting or laughing, usually drunk.

There are other times in which she sees a tall figure across the street, smoking while staring back at her window, surrounded by shadows.

Raven’s letter remains on her nightstand, unopened.  

 

-

 

A hand in her mouth and a knife in her throat wakes her abruptly not even two months later. Murphy’s eyes shine with the gas light of outside lamps in the darkness of her room.

‘Hey Clarke, good morning, you doing fine? Do us both a favor and don’t think about touching that little gun under your pillow.’ Her heart stomps in her chest with flashes of past men pointing a knife at her. ‘I should say I’m sorry about being this rude but I’m not, we need a little bit of help, be a good girl, dress up and come with me without making a fuss.’

Seeing no alternative she complies, and Murphy guides her between dark alleys and narrow streets. They walk quite a long time hiding in the shadows, occasionally stopping and listening, he putting a finger on his mouth and she trying to stop the clatter of her teeth. Finally, a door appears in front of them and Murphy knocks once, twice, once.  
It’s Octavia who opens, her face pale and sweaty.

‘About fucking time, Murphy!’ she hisses, and they push Clarke inside of what she quickly finds is an illegal distillery near a secret club where two lying forms seem to await her. One of them is a girl named Gina, and there’s nothing she can do except closing her eyes forever, so she moves to the other one.

He looks bad, and the gunshot of his left side is bleeding too much.

‘I need boiling water, the strongest alcohol you have, a pair of scissors and towels or cloths or whatever, preferably clean’ she says to nobody in particular while examining his swollen eye, but every person in the room seems too paralyzed by fear. ’Now!’ 

Bellamy looks at her through his lashes the moment she touches his face.

‘Sing that lullaby to me, princess’ he rasps and Clarke knows he has a broken nose just by the sound of his voice.

‘You aren’t looking that bad, stop whining. Octavia, I need you to sit and pull his head upwards, so the blood of the nose doesn’t obstruct his respiratory tract, Harper please pressure here with both your hands, and where the fuck is that alcohol, isn’t this a fucking club?!’

Bellamy loses consciousness the moment the pair of heated scissors enter his body to retrieve the bullet, and Clarke can’t be anymore grateful. She works methodically on his side first and then moves to his face, cleaning and stitching and cleaning again. Her fingers are numb from cold and exhaustion but she is fairly satisfied with her work and with the idea of him not losing an eye when they hear Miller shout Octavia’s name.

‘How is he?’ the man asks pointing to Bellamy while approaching the group.

‘He’ll need to rest and some painkillers, but he’ll be alright’ Clarke answers.

‘Good, because we need to leave, now. Our warehouse is under attack right now, Monty and Jasper are there and they need all the help they can get.’

The younger Blake hesitates for a second. 

‘Go’ Clarke says. ‘He shouldn’t move now or the stitches will open, I’ll stay here.’

There’s silence until Octavia nods. She grabs a gun from Murphy’s holster and passes it to Clarke.

‘You know how to use it’ and after that everyone else leaves.

She checks her father’s pocket watch. It’s 3 a.m. in the morning.

-

 

Carefully, Clarke moves Bellamy behind the counter just in case. She wraps his body in a curtain in order to keep him warm, and sits next to him, as close as possible, the moment her teeth start clattering again.

Even though everything about this situation is painfully familiar, her senses are more awake than had been in months and her chest is full with something similar to adrenaline.  
She forces her brain to relax, adjusting her breathing to his.

In and out.

The warmth of his body slowly permeates her skin. With his head resting in her chest, she closes her eyes still holding the gun.

 

-

 

His mouth moves and makes a sound, its grave tone echoing in her chest, waking Clarke in a second. 

Bellamy is trembling, sweating under the cloth, his body burning a hundred degrees. 

‘I’m sorry’ he mumbles, feverish, and Clarke leaves her secured position to get some cold water from the kitchen, pouring it delicately upon his forefront. ‘I’m sorry-y.’

‘About what?’ Clarke asks, trying to engage him in conversation to keep him awake. ‘You are sorry about what, Bellamy?’

‘Let-letter, kiss, eevery-thing’ his eyes are closing again, he’s barely able to keep his head up.

‘Okay. Is okay, Bellamy. I am sorry too, you know?’

‘Nno-need.’

‘Yes, yes. You helped me. Can you hear me? Please open your eyes a bit, don’t fall asleep again. I need you to hear me. I know I can be scary sometimes, I promise I’ll try to be a bit more reasonable next time.’

He tries to laugh but only a strangled sound comes.

‘Don’t, p-please.’

‘You are ok, you are going to be ok’ she reassures him softly.

‘I’m w-with you’ he murmurs right before falling again into a fever dream.

Clarke caresses his face.

‘Yeah, you are.’

-

 

The Delinquents are involved in a war with a dangerous gang called Azgeda led by a rich woman called Nia. She’s got money, resources, lots of dangerous men and a brain. She is also Roan’s mother and one of the reasons they wanted her to distract him that night at the club. As the organization is expanding into this territory Nia needs to wipe the Delinquents out.

Clarke learns all of this from Nyko next morning, when the news of last night attack are everywhere in town.

‘They say Blake was hurt and someone fixed him, there in the club’ the doctor says not looking at her. Clarke stares at her hands and shuts her mouth. ‘They also say Nia has enough money to bribe every cop in the states, and they are going to charge Blake on robbery and murder.’

‘Murder?’

‘A girl called Gina died last night. One of Azgeda’s boys said it was Bellamy who did it, and that’s all authorities in this town need. He’s in the infirmary of the prison waiting for the formal accusation.’

She knows what that means. Clarke stands and grabs her coat.

‘Where are you going?’

She sighs, knowing very well this is it. She’s going to lose her job and therefore her way of living. This moment will change everything she has now.

But.

‘He didn’t kill Monroe. I know.’

‘Clarke please. You are a good woman, a good nurse. Don’t get involved, I’m begging you, as a friend.’

‘I think it’s too late for that. Consider this conversation my formal resign, Doctor Nyko.’

‘I warned you- I hope you know what you are doing.’

‘Yeah, me too’ she mumbles while closing the door behind.

-

 

‘You said you were with me’ Bellamy’s voice greets her when she opens the door of her room. He twists the cap on his hands; he’s been on jail two days and his face is a mess. ‘To the police. You told them we were together, in your room, that night.’ 

How fast gossip spreads still surprises Clarke.

She holds his gaze.

‘Yes.’

His body changes, as if some invisible string has stopped pulling him upwards, and the expression that lands in his face is vulnerable and soft.

‘Why?’

‘I owed you.’

‘No, tell me the truth. Nyko fired you and now everybody thinks you are a whore for sleeping with me. You know your debt was paid helping us in the club. Why?’

‘Who we are and who we need to be to survive are two very different things’ Clarke whispers.

In a slow, deliberate motion, Bellamy wraps her in his arms, close to him, his beating heart stomping rapidly just inches away of her mouth. He caresses her hair, her back, cold fingers almost dancing on the small pale skin under her blonde waves, hot breath against her cheek, tall and lean and safe.

Something inside her brokes softly, the gates of her soul opening just the tiniest bit, her emotions almost overwhelming after so much time of numbness, the feeling as wonderful and cozy as when Wells was the one holding her.

They stay like that for a long time, door open for anyone outside to see.

 

-

 

She opens Raven’s letter.

_Your mother told me everything. Please, Clarke, come back home whenever you can, we can help you. I miss you._

The midday sun warms her face or perhaps her tears do.

-

 

He sits obediently on the bar stool so she can have a proper look at his bruises. They are almost healed and she knows, and Bellamy knows she knows. 

So, for a minute she traces the lines of his face with her gaze, admiring his cheekbones, memorizing his dimple and the colour of his eyes, and he just sits there, watching her.

Lately, Bellamy shows up in her door with a book and sits on her old couch while she writes her letters, and silence seems to be the natural way of understanding each other. They have reached a point into their strange relationship in which they have long conversations just with their eyes. Clarke has never had a connection like this before in her short life. Even Wells, being the wonderful friend he was, needed to ask what was she thinking to understand how the engines in her brain worked.

Bellamy seems to recognise her soul as a twin of his own soul. That scares her a bit.

There’s also no mistake in the way he longinly admires her profile when he believes she doesn’t notice. It warms her heart and belly, but she stubbornly refuses to let herself feel something.

She doesn’t deserve it, and she knows.

‘How about you work with us?’ he asks startling her, so lost in her own thoughts she had almost forgot he was still sitting under her hands, watching her. ‘We can be a bit of trouble for a nice lady, but it’s nothing a tough nurse can’t handle.’

He says it nonchalantly, but Clarke knows the offering is a serious issue. Truth is, she has spent more time in that illegal club in the late month that in her own apartment, and now she knows every Delinquent by name, their parents name, where they live and so on. They are opening wide the door of a complete new world, a dangerous one, to Clarke.

‘Is this a job interview, Bellamy?’

‘Your merits exceed our requirements, really. I would say you are even too qualified for a bunch of losers as us.’

Clarke snorts, focused in his cheek, examining the cut.

‘Who says I’m not a loser?’

‘Princess, please.’

‘Stop with the princess thing.’

‘It could be a great alias. The Delinquents and the princess.’

‘And what would this menacing gang do? Robbing banks? Be involved in gunfires?’

‘Whatever the hell we want.’

‘It sounds like a jazz band to me, honestly.’

‘So, is this a no?’

‘You know I’ll help you in anyway you need. But-’

‘But you are not planning to stay here for much longer.’

His bluntness surprises her. Bellamy’s eyes have hardened, his pose now stiff and distant. Clarke takes a step away from him, unconsciously.

‘I never made any promises.’

‘You never-! Of fucking course not! How can you make any promises if you are never honest with me?’

‘I’ve always-!’

‘Clarke, please! I don’t even know why you are here! You only told us about Emerson because you needed us! You have a complete collection of ghosts dancing around you and never say a fucking word!’ His face can reflect a hundred expressions in just a minute. Mouth slightly open, eyes pleading, dark curls above his ears: he is a dream, too perfect to be true, too good for someone like her.  ‘Please,’ he whispers, his hand on her hair, closer, closer ‘let me help you. If you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you.’

This is it.

This is when she ruins everything, as always.

‘No one can forgive me until I forgive myself, Bellamy.’

He stares into her blue irises and says no other word.  

 

-

  
_Dear Bellamy,_

_You should know the kind of person I am. You deserve to know, more than anyone else I have ever met in my life._

_My childhood friend Wells Jaha was the most generous person I have ever known and he volunteered for the war. I loved him like a brother, so I followed trying to protect him. I couldn’t._

_Finn Collins looked at me with his final breath and asked me to help him. He said, please Clarke, and I did it, just as I did with Atom. I killed him because I loved him, and he was suffering, but Raven spat on my face when she found about it._

_After his death I bombed  a town with 382 persons inside. The soldiers called me Wanheda, commander of death. They were right._

_Death follows me everywhere I go._

_I left Polis in a hurry because my father was murdered by the local council. He was condemned and executed for treason after leaking to the press some compromising papers concerning public health. I helped him leaking those papers._ _The person that sentenced him is Wells’ father. My mother asked me to disappear from town until things were safe again so we bought a ticket for the first train in the morning._

_That’s how I arrived into this town. That’s how I met you. That’s the person I am. A liar, a murderer, a runaway. This is my complete collection of ghosts, as you exposed so cleverly._

_I know what you want from me, but my hands are empty. I can’t ignore the fact that my love means a death sentence._

_I never wanted to hurt you._

_You’ll have a good life, find a good love. I am sure, because you deserve it. You deserve everything I can’t give to you._

_But you are still alive, Bellamy. I love you, and you are still standing. That counts, I suppose._

_Yours,_

_Clarke._

-

 

The train leaves at 6 a.m. and the platform is almost empty today. Her bag is heavy and she drags it along until a hand appears from nowhere and pulls it up.

He is smoking.

Her heart pounds so loudly she’s sure he hears it.

‘I just want to say goodbye’ he says, voice rough. Then, in a smooth motion, he gives a last puff to the cigarette, throws it away, puts his free hand in the back of her neck and pulls her body closer.

Bellamy kisses her, demanding and gentle and rough and languid, in every way possible.

She lets herself tremble and open and die sweetly in his bitter-tasting mouth for the last time.

 

-

 

Clarke closes her eyes and inhales the cold morning air, filled with a bizarre mix of smoke and wet grass, her lips still warm, her eyes dry from tears.

The train arrives.

She leaves Arkadia, Bellamy and her heart behind.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I binge watched Peaky Blinders. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated :)


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